Department: County Administration
Department Head/Elected Official: Diana Ramirez, County Administrator
Regular or Supplemental RCA: Regular RCA
Type of Request: Interlocal Agreement
Project ID (if applicable): n/a
Vendor/Entity Legal Name (if applicable): n/a
MWDBE Contracted Goal (if applicable): n/a
MWDBE Current Participation (if applicable): n/a
Justification for 0% MWDBE Participation Goal: N/A - Goal not applicable to request
Request Summary (Agenda Caption):
title
Request for approval of a Data Use Agreement between Harris County and the Trustees of the University of Pennsylvania, acting on behalf of the Quattrone Center for the Fair Administration of Justice, to evaluate recent pretrial reforms affecting misdemeanor defendants in Harris County, TX, and to measure how the county's bail reform initiatives impact criminal justice outcomes.
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Background and Discussion:
In December 2020, Harris County and the University of Pennsylvania, acting on behalf of the Quattrone Center, entered into a data use agreement approved by Commissioners Court. This agreement was for two years. The original DUA did not include verbiage about an extension, so a new DUA is required to continue the work. In May 2021, Harris County went through data governance efforts that stopped the ability to share data. This stoppage lasted five months, and we resumed data sharing in October 2021. This delayed their evaluation of pretrial reforms affecting misdemeanor defendants in Harris County as requested by Commissioners Court. In the summer of 2022, Paul Heaton, with the University of Pennsylvania, presented a completed portion of the evaluation to Commissioners Court. As a result of his presentation, the policymakers in Harris County requested continued research to be conducted by the Quattrone Center. The data use agreement needs to be extended to complete the initial work and the continued research requests from the 2022 presentation.
Expected Impact:
When the DUA...
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